Week Three in the Big Bahama House

If she saw another person lounge around on a sun lounger, Ursula was going to rip the infernal thing out from underneath them. First of all, sun was a horrid thing and she much prefered cloudy days back in England with or without rain she wasn't preferential to, and secondly, all they did was lay there. What boredom.

As Ursula made her bored way back to her shared room, she took a minute out of her ever so busy walking-thinking scheduele to decide in her head as to if now was the right time to tell David everything that happened. She had known the minute she had booked in at the hotel Vesper that it had been the wrong idea. All she wanted to be was to feel that she was safe, but not in the stupid womanly way. She wanted to be able to face everything there was in the eye and be brave. But then again, Ursula had a knack for weak knees in situations, and that wasn't always directed at Ministers.

She wouldn't be able to disapparate back, especially not with Emily coming along and she wasn't entirely sure that she'd want Emily there in on the conversation, what with what she had found in her niece's bag just before departure. They had actually crossed the line and that really had sealed the deal, and any last minute regrets of deciding to leave.

An owl was addressed to David's secretary Martha, and inside it, a smaller envelope with David written in messy letters, and inside that was the address of the hotel. I think I'm ready to talk about it now. Could you help ease a poor souls mind?

David had dismissed the letter when it had come earlier, Martha had knocked on the door telling him it had arrived but he had told her to just put it with the rest of the post. He would deal with it all alter. He was just very busy. Things were going, ok, you could say. Nothing fantastic, but he didn’t expect anything great to come out of what the small team were doing.

But now that he had found sometime to himself, after getting through several head of department meetings and boring discussions with a couple of ministry workers down in the Atrium, he thought that it was time to go through the mail.

He flicked through to see the usual, he always hoped that there would be something different and there it was. Not a large envelope, nothing fancy either, but what stuck out the most was that it was simply addressed David on a plain envelope. The handwriting looked fairly familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

He opened it and the first thing he read was the address for a hotel. He was slightly puzzled but then he read the rest of the note and he soon understood. Ursula had finally written to him. He was so relieved to see that she was ok, well ok enough to write him a letter at least and even more pleased to see that she wanted to speak to him. She trusted him it seemed. Deciding that a meeting about with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement could wait another day, he grabbed a coat, although he wasn’t sure that he would need one in the Bahamas and told Martha that he was leaving and to deal with the rest of his appointments.

He popped by the department for magical travel before he left to get advice about apparating abroad to somewhere he hadn’t been and they had advised against it. But David ignored them, a portkey would take far too long to set up and there was no way that anyone in the Bahamas would have a fireplace. Come on, sun, sea and sand, air conditioning was more likely than a fireplace.

After leaving the Ministry he concentrated on the address that she had given to him. He had disapparated so many times in his life, that the fear of splinching that he had as a seventeen year old had long since been forgotten, you just had to have confidence. He felt the well known tug on his body and when knew before even opening his eyes that he had reached his destination as a wave of heat swept over him. He immediately took of his coat, jacket and robes, shrinking them down and placing them in his pocket. He undid his tie and top button, rolling up his sleeves as he made his way towards the hotel and upto the front desk.

“I believe an Ursula Sparrow is staying with you,” he smiled at the receptionist behind the counter, and then glanced down at the piece of paper again, “She says she is staying in room 69.”

The receptionist nodded and pointed him in the direction of the lift. He watched the floor numbers increase and wondered what it was that Ursula wanted to tell him, it must have been important for her to vanish the way that she had. The door binged and a cheerful woman’s voice told him that he was on floor six.

Making his way along the corridor he eventually came to Ursula’s door, feeling slightly stuffy he didn’t know whether his palms were slightly clammy due to the weather or nerves. He shrugged and gently knocked on the door.

“Ursula, its David. I got your message.”

It always felt jilted when David swung by, and this time (knowing that chivalry with David among a few other things she could not place) she wasn't going to let his hisness get in the way of anything. It did fluctuate usually on what stopped her from being her normal self- the last time being petrified and the time before that being a little off hinged after Stonehenge- and this time she wanted to make sure she was completely relaxed.

Or as relaxed as one would ever be before they unravel like a yarn of wool, next to a ravenous cat which should have been taken away by the muggle RSPCA because just look at those claws, and it's concave belly. It really wants that string gosh darn it...

And after a long time, or no time at all, of Ursula preparing mentally while making a fruit salad, the knife making a satisfying chop everytime it hit the wood underneath, Ursula heard a knock and whizzed the door open, just in time to hear his voice.

"Take a seat, and grab a piece of melon," she ordered, still in her frame of mind. She wiped the knife on her apron, stuck it in the 'ethnic' sink and washed the fruit again under neath the 'ethnic' tap. This hotel really took it one step too far.

"I will see you now," she said with a much easier smile. "And I must say, I'm glad you came."
She crossed one leg over the other and dug in on her dinner. There hadn't been a need to rush before he came. She wasn't so much bothered with people seeing her eat. Besides, she could always eat like she had in the Coffee shop if the conversation (unlike the cake) had turned stale.

She was eying the focal piece of the coffee table in front of the couch. If he didn't take anything, she'd throw the entire fruit bowl at him.

David couldn’t help but smile when he saw the woman, he didn’t know what he was expecting. Was he really expecting to find her in danger? He shook his head at the thought. She was fine. Better than fine it apparently seemed, well at least better than when he had seen her last.

“It’s nice to see you too,” he replied as he took a seat admiring the room, it was rather fancy, but then again this was Miss Sparrow he was talking with, he could never imagine her going for something basic, “Nice to hear from you.”

He watched her take her own seat and thought that as she had offered, it was only polite of him to do as she asked and he reached for a piece of melon. Taking a bite, he had to quickly wipe the juice that dribbled down his chin. Great. Now he looked like a child that could eat their food properly.

“Thank you, for this,” he waved the melon around a bit, but as he began to drip it everywhere thought it best to just try and eat it without causing too much more mess, “You know I really shouldn’t have bothered. I mean just look at me.”

He laughed a little and made himself a bit more comfortable in his seat. It was nice to sit and laugh for a bit, even if it was at his own expense, but he still wished to find out why Ursula had finally asked for him to come and see her.

“So, your letter,” he began licking his lips a bit, “It seemed that you needed someone to talk to. What’s been going on Ursula?”

As per usual, David gave off the air of a small awkward child trying to do his uttmost to blend into the crowd, but his natural tendency to be clumsy-- something Ursula couldn't do even if she tried, or rather if she faked and pretended her leg was broken so she could meet André Martinez wha?-- seemed to shine through any disguise. That was the thing about David, every mask you could blatantly see through, all the opacity.

"You and mess will always attract," she said, shaking her head, and thus severing her small admiring glances from a quiet distance. Sometimes David really was in his own little world so she could get away with a sneaky look every now and again. Especially when he wasn't facing her way, and he was standing up. And he had his suit trousers on that-- nevermind.

Against her own personal hatred of anything sunny (which really posed the question as to why she chose a resort close to the equator) she couldn't help but admit that the weather, or something new in her circumstances had made her a lot more positive. The same routine applied at night, however, but she was getting around that.

"I wanted to talk to you about what I learnt," she said, taking a forkful of pear and almond. As she ate, she thought how best to structure what she knew. She wasn't one to ramble, and things would have to come clean off concise in her head before the words were even forming in her mouth. "About the attack in Stonehenge and the attack afterward."

It sounded like a stupid thing to leave hanging in the air like that, but Ursula had another mouthful needing to be eaten, while she thought about what best next to say. Being a professor to some of the kids at Hogwarts gave you immeasurable patience, and she only hoped David could say the same thing about being a Minister Of Magic, too.

"I found out some information, you see. And I thought that it'd be of the uttmost value to you. Well, parts of it, and then the rest would just null your neutral curiosity in the thing. After all," she added off-handedly, "it wasn't like you weren't involved in the matter yourself."

Heaven forbid he be here because he cared.

“I guess you are right,” he finished the piece of melon he was eating and thought that it would be best for both him and the state of the furniture around him if he avoided having anymore.

The heat was starting to get to him, making him a little uncomfortable, he pulled at his collar a bit more and undid another button, but it didn’t seem to do anything for him. He hadn’t been abroad in a long time and he now understood why, he just couldn’t stand the heat. His idea of a holiday would have to be somewhere cool, like skiing in the Alps or something similar.

“What you’ve learnt?” he sat up a bit straighter and turned to pay his full attention to her, it was the least he could do, he was slightly confused at what she said, “attack at Stonehenge? I don’t think I understand, but I guess if I did then there would be no need for me to be here and you explaining to me.”

He waited patiently for her to explain, he could tell that she was thinking these things through, and he understood. If you were able to keep things simple when you explained things, rather than a ramble then it helped people understand better, fewer questions were usually asked, and people ended up less confused. So he simply waited for her to take her time.

“Well, I’m here to listen, if there is any way that I can help you then I will try my best,” he shifted his feet, unsure what to do with them, he was curious yes, who wouldn’t be if a woman felt she needed to up and leave the country, the country that you were meant to be running especially, “I was involved yes, and will remain involved until we have this sorted.”

He shuffled a bit closer to her, he was really glad that he had asked him to help, and he hoped it wasn’t just because he was the Minister and had many resources at his hand. He hoped that it was because he was David.

“So what is it that you want to tell me? Whatever it is, I’ll help.”

"What if we never get it sorted?" she said quietly.
Truth be told, Ursula was getting annoyed with having to give deep talks with David. At heart, she was always going to be a woman who told things much easier through her body and through dance, but of course she wasn't going to start parading around here doing expressive dance, because that would be stupid, and not very easy to put her point across.

"Someone came after me a week or two after we last saw each other," she said, her voice surprisingly non shaky. "It took a while for it to sink in. They tried to get me on the way home-" (It was at this point she grabbed onto her knee and made fluid movements with her fork) "but I got in the door in time. Lucky a friend of mine did a few protective charms a few days after Stonehenge because I got paranoid. Rightly so," she said, a shudder coming through her. Time to eat the rest of the bowl.

At this point she hadn't yet looked up at David. Looking at people's pitying eyes when you were baring yourself to be truly vulnerable- and really, what else could she say? That she was in control? That she had no fear? Especially at home- really made her heart hurt. It hurt to not be in control. It hurt to be pitied.

"And stonehenge was an attack too. I don't know who by, and who for. But for one of us, and it got me." It took a lot to keep most of the accusing tone out of her voice there, but she couldn't hide it all. What would anyone want with a measly Professor?

Ursula spoke quietly about something and David wasn’t able to hear the exact words but she didn’t sound too optimistic, as if she had already given up. He just gave her a reassuring smile and waited for her to continue, he was determined to help her, he didn’t really know what was driving him to help this woman so much. There were plenty of people that needed his help and he did help them in a way, but through delegating through the Ministry, but this instance was different. He didn’t think he could hand off the problem to someone else; he wanted to deal with it personally.

“Wait, what?!” David’s breath had caught in his throat. Someone had followed her? Came after her in fact. David was used to followers, harmless people who just wanted to catch a glimpse of his normal life. He had only ever had a couple of people ‘come after’ him, the malicious type that were not just curious, but wanted to cause trouble one way or another. He was pretty sure that those people had served some sentence in Azkaban. “Did you see who it was? Anything at all?”

He didn’t want to barrage her with questions; she would hopefully tell him everything she could. That was the reason he was here wasn’t it, she wanted him to help didn’t she?

“Stonehenge?” he was confused even more now, she had only mentioned Stonehenge once, when they had enjoyed each other’s company over cheesecake, well he had enjoyed her company he wasn’t entirely sure how she felt. But even so she hadn’t even hinted at anything going wrong with her visit, except for the fact of David nearly knocking her off her broom. The details didn’t really matter now, she had been attacked and that was all David needed to know now, “We can figure this out, I will have a team come with me and we’ll test the site. We can at least try and figure out something that was going on there. We will get this sorted Ursula. I will make sure of it. Do you really think that it wasn’t meant for you? The attack? Just if it was, then is there anyone that knew where you were going?”

It did seem slightly strange to David that someone would attack a Professor, but then again he didn’t really know Ursula, he didn’t really know what business she was involved in, or what people she knew. Although it seemed unlikely that she would be behind any trouble, you could never really be sure any more.

She felt more in her element now. It felt easier to talk now that David was speaking. Maybe it was easier to listen. Theraputic. If she had felt at liberty to smile she would've done so, not to encourage David to carry on speaking- although she hoped he would- but that she was genuinely relieved almost already to have someone to say this to. There was no-one whatsoever she could trust in the Bahamas and Emily- well, she couldn't talk to Emily, especially when she didn't even know if she was with or against her.

Screwed up times.
"Some of the people are vague, and some aren't. I wrote down profiles of the people I saw. That was at the second time though. The time at home. I just took the leap that they were there at Stonehenge too. It's too much of a coincidence. Nothing like this has ever happened to or around me before, you know?"

Thank the lord David doesn't ask for an explanation of Stonehenge. Even if she remembered all of it she wouldn't have dared say any of it. That out of all of the things she had ever encountered had scared her to the bone. Magic rendered useless. Not even her body- her limbs- a body on which she prized so much on had given her no help at all.
"I don't know who it was meant for, but they came after me anyway, didn't they?" she bit down on her lip. "It's just hard when you've got someone other than yourself to look out for," she admits, although that's not entirely why. "But the final straw was when they dragged Emily into this. And that was what sealed the deal to come to the Bahamas."

She sucks in another breath and magics her pots away into the sink. She's almost finished her quota of speaking for the day today.

David fidgeted slightly in his seat, he wasn’t really one for sitting still, even when he had to stand and address people he would fidget from one foot to the other or walk about a little. He just didn’t know what to do with himself sometimes, a bit like a child.

“Well anything is better than nothing,” he gave her a supportive smile, he would get help to go through the archives within the Ministry to see if they could match any of the details that Ursula could give to a recorded face, “any little details that you have, that you may think coincidental or unimportant may help as well, you never really know.”

He could imagine that this must be very scary for her, he hadn’t seen Emily yet, but she must have been around somewhere. He didn’t have any family of his own, only his parents. He had never had to look after for anyone like that. So he could only imagine.

“What do you mean they’ve dragged Emily into this?” he was a little bit panicked by this, maybe he hadn’t seen her because she wasn’t here, maybe they had got her, and Ursula had raced off to the Bahamas to find her? Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions. “Where is she? How is she? Is she safe?”

Another barrage of questions but there wasn’t a lot more David could do, he wasn’t that good at the comforting thing, he didn’t think. So he thought the best thing to do was to get as much information as he could.

David looking uneasy in turn made Ursula feel a little uneasy. To keep something casual about this situation- like some friends merely visiting each other and going for a catch-up, as David spoke she excused herself and set up a yoga mat. It was much more comfortable to sit that way as opposed to sitting straightbacked on the light sofa. It was nice to change dynamics in a while.

"Oh, I'm sure she's beside the beach. I wanted to give her her own space. Or, I don't know, wanted some space to myself," she shrugged. "I never asked for this parenting gig, but don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give her up. I just am still learning."

She kept her cool as she placed her hands on her knees and thought about what David was saying. This of course, had been the final straw, but it seemed that every single thing she was saying seemed to be so melodramatic. There always could have been other reasons as to why Emily had what she had, but in the light of current events Ursula would do well to take everything that seemed to thread together into the same needle.

"She had this dark crystal. And the engraving underneath was of Borgin and Burkes. Trouble was, the familiar face I saw was in Borgin and Burkes, when I went--" Ursula's ears pinkened at the thought of this, "for a personal errand I had to run in Knockturn. And that all came back to me. I think she was the soon-to-be-owner of the shop."

And if you tallied that up with Diagon being intrinsically easy to get to from the Leaky Cauldron, and the Leaky Cauldron being close to Platform 9 and 3 quarters and nine and three quarters was just down the road from where Ursula and Emily lived, as Ursula had done all her life, you could see the reason why she had to leave.

Oh, and did she mention Mildred was a girl she knew from school?

"Would you care to do a bit of yoga?" she asked, crossing her legs.








(OOC: I wonder if David is as flexible as you are. You know what I mean.)

David let out a small sigh of relief; he was simply overreacting and jumping to conclusions. He imagined that Emily was having a quite nice holiday out here in the sun away from Hogwarts. He nodded and understood what Ursula was saying, he wouldn’t have a clue about the whole parenting thing.

“I think you have done absolutely fine,” he smiled, “I mean, if I had a child placed in my care, I think they would have ended up in St Mungos by now with food poisoning or worse, I probably would have ended up feeding them glue or washing powder or something completely ridiculous like that. Not on purpose mind, I just don’t have the smallest idea of how to look after a child, other than remembering what my mother did when I was younger, and I still don’t think I would do a great job.”

He watched her as she set up a mat of some sort, and sat herself down on it. Yoga. Now there was something he hadn’t tried. It really wasn’t his sort of thing, he was more into Rugby as a small boy and then Quidditch once he learned of it at Hogwarts.

“Um, I’m not going to be great at this you know,” he kicked off his shoes and sat himself down on the floor beside Ursula, he copied her and crossed his legs which he did with some difficulty. He hadn’t had to do that in a long time, a very long time infact, not since he was a kid in primary school probably, and so struggled slightly. “Well this isn’t a great start.”

He shuffled around a bit until he was comfortable, just listening to her talk about Emily and he could now understand her concern. In fact he was indeed concerned himself. A child like Emily should not be venturing anywhere near Knockturn Alley, nevermind Borgin and Burkes. But to actually have something from there he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.

“Have you asked Emily about it?” he frowned, “I really don’t recommend dealing with anyone in Knockturn Alley, Ursula, other than the majority of the people down there not being the nicest in the world, it’s not really safe; the shop owners, their stock or their customers.”

At David's insistance that she hadn't done entirely awfully, she couldn't help but feel a warmth grace her cheeks. She felt like a student again. Being praised in Transfiguration! That was the only subject. Infact, the compulsory History of Magic lessons she ran rampant, like a dancer on an out-of-date Cheering Potion.

She shifted her weight from her ankles, and leaning on her front, brought her legs to touch the back of her neck, before breathing and slowly going back to the original place, curling a bit of rampant hair around her ear.

"You crossed your legs most satisfactorily. For that, you have my respect," she teased.
And then the atmosphere felt a little bit more pinched again.
"Oh, yes. I will have to talk to Emily at some point. I am just scared of the outcome I suppose. Don't want my fears answered," she bit down on her lip.

David's advice seemed to strike a nerve there. "Don't tell me what I can't do," she said darkly. After all, the only reason she had gone there to a sort-of friend was because of the man in the first place.
At which point she realised he probably hadn't picked up on her errand running and was probably talking about Emily.
"Oh, I'm sorry. My wires were crossed there. Yes. I- er, yes."
No more words seemed to want to come out. What a fool she'd made of herself. And no less, David of all people telling her what to do? How stupid.

"I'm sorry," she said looking at him in the eye at last.